International Students @ Concordia: Cu Chi Viet Cong Tunnels

December 30, 2008

Upon arrival to Vietnam, I took a bus for about two hours, which took us 70 km Northwest of Ho Chi Min City (previously Saigon).

The countryside is green, with palm trees and rice fields one after the other.

From time to time, you can see people working on the fields, with their rice-peak-hats, looking up and down on a typical humid, hot and sunny day.

But you can also see people taking a break. Outside their houses, they are laying down in hammocks, some sleeping, some talking or relaxing.

Kids are everywhere. On their bicycles. Playing, jumping around or racing.

The bus stopped and we got off at the Cu Chi District's Vietcong Tunnel site for tourists.

What I had seen through the windows now felt now real: It was humid, hot and sunny.

Humid, hot and sunny...

How did the Viet Cong soldiers survive the Vietnam War living in this Tunnel City?

Imagine you are the enemy, walking through the forest with your uniform on.

You look down at your boots, and you catch between the leaves a small, square wooden entrance.

This is how the Viet Cong soldiers entered their tunnels:

But if you are stepping around as the enemy, it's almost impossible to survive.

You can step into traps, or even FALL into traps.

You are killed by your own material as well. Viet Cong soldiers recycled rubber from the enemy's boots to make themselves sandals.

They also recycled the material of the napalm bombs and shells that were dropped around to make the traps.The enemy falling into their own traps...

Napalm is a mixture of gasoline and other chemicals.

It BURNS at a temperature of 1 000 degrees celcius.

When I asked the guide if he knew about the girl in the picture, Kim Phuc, he knew she was now safe back in Toronto, Canada.

I knew that too. I had a chance to talk to her before when she came to Concordia University in Montreal to do a speech.

"So where is Kim Phuc's village?" I asked him.

"Just about 40 minutes away from here."

It was a humid, hot and sunny day...

For more information, check these links:

International Students @ Concordia